Arizona Dreams (David Mapstone Mystery 4)

Peralta had a letter in his hands. I read over his shoulder. It was from the Earleys’ lawyer. “They had a tentative deal, and then Bell refused to sign,” Peralta said. It was dated two weeks before Louie Bell was murdered.

“I know what you’re thinking, Mapstone,” he said. “Stop.”

I leafed through the other contents of the legal-sized envelope. If there was any doubt remaining, there were two Tom Earley business cards. One in his role as president of Earley Development Group, and the other as Maricopa County supervisor. A color brochure of the Arizona Dreams development was stapled to another business card, for someone named Shelley Baker. On a single sheet of legal paper the name Earl Rice was written in pencil, and underlined.

“Look at this.” Blair was talking. He pointed to the signature of the lawyer for Louis Bell, at the bottom of the deed transfer. My spine expanded at least an inch: the name was Alan Cordesman, and the date of the document was a month before he was found murdered in Willo.

“We need a warrant tonight,” Blair said. “We’ve got to get access to the Earley house before they realize we know, and start destroying evidence.”

“Wait,” Peralta said.

“Earley and his wife are connected to three homicides by these documents,” Blair said. “This is what the suspect was looking for. Bell probably gave this to Davey Crockett for safekeeping. Earley clearly had a financial interest…”

“No,” Peralta said.

“Blair’s right,” I said quietly. Deputies were crowded around us, nervously fingering their leather belt accessories, snapping and unsnapping items in the timeless fidgeting of cops. Peralta glared at me. “I want that evidence sealed for now,” he said. “Mapstone, you can go.”

I didn’t move. He glared at me more. His face would have been at home among the heads on Easter Island. It didn’t intimidate me. We had been patrol deputies in another life, and I claimed some prerogatives of a former partner. I looked him back in the eye. No one spoke. After what seemed like five minutes, he said, “Talk to me over here for a minute,” and stalked out to the road. Then he walked fast out into the night. I had to trot at first to keep up. The air was cooler than in the city, and as we gained distance from the floodlights, the canopy of stars emerged. Grand eternity enveloped us, courtesy of the dry atmosphere. On the earth, we might as well have been a hundred miles from even a drink of water. The empty land cascaded outward in every direction, contained only by the eerie black shapes of mountains and buttes that occluded the fantastic constellations and billions of distant suns that lit our walk.

“Tell me a historical story, Mapstone,” Peralta said. “That’s what you’re supposed to be here for.”

“You’d be bored.” I was all out of history for the moment. Davey Crockett was dead and the Alamo had fallen.

We walked on in silence. Finally, I said, “We’re not too far from the site of the Oatman massacre. It was 1851, I think. An Apache war party attacked a group of settlers headed for California. A little girl named Olive Oatman was kidnapped. She was late

r sold to the Mohave Indians, and then…”

“What have you gotten us into, Mapstone?”

He didn’t wait for me to answer.

“This man is a very powerful politician,” he said.

“You’re the most powerful politician in the county,” I said.

“Times change,” he replied.

“What do you mean times change?”

“Mapstone, look at who’s running the country. People like Tom Earley. These are the kind of people that don’t sweat when they fuck. Understand? But I have to get along with them.”

I stopped and stared at him. I could only see the wide planes of his face illuminated by starlight. “Are you telling me you’re afraid to investigate this?”

“I am afraid,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. This is political dynamite. Even if I decided the evidence was worth looking at, I’d have to turn it over to another law enforcement agency. DPS or the Pima County sheriff. There can’t be any charge of conflict of interest.”

“The Earleys aren’t above the law,” I protested. “Dana came to me with a fake letter from a fake father. Then she claimed she was being blackmailed. When I asked for the evidence, she wanted to meet at El Pedregal. I nearly got my brains beaten in, and she never called me again. And all you can talk about is politics?”

“Go home,” he ordered.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I erupted. “These documents link together three separate murders. When have you ever been cautious or political? You’re not. It’s why people respect you and love you. Something is going on. My office was broken into. The lock was knocked out clean as surgery. Who did that, in a guarded county building, and what were they looking for? Last time I checked you were the sheriff. And now you want to go hide behind protocol?”

“You’re out of line.”

“I know. But I’m right.”

“You sound like Sharon.”

I kicked at the sandy dirt, just to be kicking something. “You had a good thing going there, and you screwed it up. I know, I’m out of line.”